The mayor of NYC on bankers, 1922.

From: Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' Journal, Volumes 27-28, 1922

...Mayor John F. Hylan of New York, recently visited Chicago and before an audience of several thousands of people assembled in the Hotel La Salle, paid his respects to this modern governmental orge referred to as the invisible government.

"Some years ago a sterling American— Theodore Roosevelt—condemned the 'invisible government,' " said Mayor Hylan. "That warning has much timeliness today, for the real menace of our republic is this invisible government which, like a giant octopus, sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation.

"To depart from mere generalizations, let me say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers."

"The Rockefeller interests control the Standard Oil Company, a corporation composed of several hundred associated and affiliated concerns transacting a combined business of more than $3,000,000,000 a year. The Standard Oil flag floats over a fleet of ocean-going vessels larger in number and tonnage than the United States navy and the pennant of Standard Oil is followed and supported by the flag of the United States all over the world.

"The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United, States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use leading men of private organizations and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business."

"They connive at centralization of government on the theory that a small group of hand-picked, privately controlled individuals in power can be more easily handled th in a larger group among whom there will most likely be men sincerely interested in public welfare."

He then preceded with a detailed expose of how this system of governmental control shaped every avenue of governmental activity from the making of treaties with foreign governments, to making its presence and influence apparent even in municipal affairs, no portion of the field of human endeavor that promised the slightest direct or indirect profit to them, being regarded as sacred, no matter what effect such interference might have upon the destinies of either village, city, county, state or nation. Concluding his mind arousing statements with this logical climax:

"We must have a return to that stanch Americanism of the early patriots who builded so wisely and so well. The American fathers were men of vision and of courage, and, being such, all sinister schemes to inveigle America into the net of old-world intrigue failed miserably. If Washington and our other patriots allowed their betterjudgment to become suffocated by the blandishments of European diplomatists we might today be the footstool of the old world instead of a powerful nation."

"European statecraft, 3,000 miles away, must not be allowed under specious appeals to idealism to seize the sovereignty and power of the United States of America to bolster up decadent institutions. Let our slogan be America for Americans, free and independent, now and forevermore!"